3.5 More days (2): The Patient Ass

Ian and I pulled into the Apron Lot giving thanks for the last dry Monday, and promptly ran into one Julian and his lovely partner Reschelle.

"Hey," said Julian, "are you guys the Gumbies On Crack?" to which we obviously responded with "hells yea" and some embarassed fidgeting, and Ian high-tailing it to the shitter. Julian appeared grateful that this blog has managed to distract him from his cubicular dreariness, and I was tickled pink. We all know that we aren't actually trying to climb the route-- we are trying to (a) meet women (Napoleon), (b) perfect epic hungover aid leads (Driller) and (c) learn to blog (me). But today we would find out that Ian also has a goal...

"So," said Julian, "are you guys and Napoleon ACTUALLY FRIENDS?" and we started giggling like 13 year olds looking at Jonas Brothers baby pictures, and we said "OF COURSE! We just like to shit-talk" and at this point Julian said-- and I am not making this up-- "yeah, I've seen that guy in the Bluffs, he climbs fucking hard." Right on, Napoleon!

So we got to the route and today Ian was gonna try to send P1-- the new improved crack version. He missed the onsight, falling off where Napoleon and I had, in the V-slot-- but what followed was one of the finest moments I have seen in climbing.

Ian fired the V second try, worked his way up to the small roof, and then launched into the layback. It was wet. It was muddy. One of his pieces had a lobe up against a root. You do bizarre armbars. Nothing feels secure. You place gear blind. Think "Apron Strings" but colder, wetter, dirtier. Ian skated, cussed, err-hemmed and grunted, and sent! I fell seconding the damn thing-- it was because I was wearing a crowbar instead of my Kaukulators, obviously-- and we decided that 5.11 a or b was it. We also decided that, like a murderer or adulterer in the middle ages, or a hipster girl after too many PBRs and some unprotected, sweaty, fixie-bike sex, our first pitch would need a Plan B in case of water on the pitch, or in case climbers smarter (and weaker) than Ian (and I) try it. So we will fix our original bolted line and you can all decide for yourself how you want it; hard like Ian or soft, like me.

Ian led the traverse and confirmed, 5.9 is about right.

Turns out that Napoleon, Paul Cordy and John Effa had done a great job on P2, 3 and 4. I fell-- AFTER the crux-- on P3, which will go at 11b or 11c. Here's Ian following:

And here he is busting a gut. The man's posing skills exceed even mine!


Props to you boys! And then it was time to mess with the dihedral. Well...let's just say, this thing will take every nubbin-pinching, crystal-stemming, high-stepping, sequence-remembering trick in your internal matrix of moves to send. I managed the first two bolts; Ian the 3rd, 4th and 5th, and then darkness came.

Well we rapped off our project pitch rap station, and then the rope got stuck. here's us finally having retrieved stuff, ready to go home. Thsi is what your hands and figertips will look like, if you are as lucky as we are!


So Ian's goal was obviously to climb, and he did it. I'll leave it to Napoleon, Dylan and the hit-counter I can't figure out to let you all know how the rest of us are doing, heh heh.

So...back to calculus class...a half-day of work on P1...and it will be ready to go...Lord, Thy patient Ass awaits Thy command...

Day 22: Nearer, my Send, to Thee

Today, like it usually is for Bill and Ted, was excellent!

Young Napoleon-- fresh from an encounter with a cougar that he and Ian and John E. ran into in the Bluffs, the kind that wants to sink her claws into these scrumptious young viragos-- was somehow energised, and was merely seven minutes late this morning. Seven minutes late in Napoleon time is basically early-- EXCELLENT!

Napoleon decided he would send P1 and, after getting three feet off the ground, began to thrash in the V-groove. So I was asked to "spot" him by which he meant "hold up your hands and grab my ass," which I did. For Napoleon, EXCELLENT!

Napoleon aided his way up to the top of P1, citing dirt as a send-preventative factor, and I followed, laden with drill, bolts and pack. We climbed P2-- which will need a mild scrub-- and decided it would be 5.10-. This is my first free ascent ever-- EXCELLENT! Here's what it looks like:


The travserse is clean and done; here's Napoleon on it.


I then hganded the gear over and fired into P3. Well let's just say that my crack-skills, fingers, courage, and determination (and probably other things) are weak, so I moved and hung my way through the crux into the hand section. This will go at 5.11- or so and is an EXCELLENT pitch-- straight in fingers and hand for 30 meters. Napoleon followed:

I led P4 which is probably 10c or d and then brought Napoleon, who wasn't feeling too hot, up. I was pretty happy that he was along despite feeling somewhat out of it-- EXCELLENT work, Napoleon. Here Napoleon is, topping out at the place where the Leaning Pillar of Death used to be.

I then jugged up to start the Longest Bolt Ladder in Squamish and drilled until the battery died while Napoleon sat at the base of the dihedral and shivered and we trash-talked each other. Well actually Napoleon trash-talked my girlfriend ("beware, my Lord, of jealousy...") and my Mom (who was climbing 5.10 trad 20 years before Napoleon was even a ripple in the nut-sack..."beware, my Lord..."), and I trash-talked him. The bolts are about a sling's length apart, so it will be fast and easy to use the ladder. The "wet like your wife" pitch seeped and hung there silently while Napoleon dreamed of warm, sunny belays surrounded by nubile women in tight shorts and tank tops, and the drill chattered and whirred.

We retreated at 5 and drove to get some coffee. We figure three man-days now: we must scrub P1 and the bottom of P2, give the handcrack and dihedral another once-over, finish the ladder, add a bolt to P8, and get the ropes off. We have good weather through Saturday, so I am hoping Nap[oleon, Ian and I can get it done next weekend. If I never see a drill, a crowbar or a wire-brush ever again, it will be too soon. Here I am finishing a climbing route, and I will have to re-learn how to climb!

Day 21: You Can't Always Get What You Want

We chattered like monkeys. We gangsta-rap texted each other. We whooped and hollered. And, five feet off the ground, arm-barred into the v-slot on Pitch One, feet skating, fingers scratching at a muddy crack, Dilly gently urging me on, I knew that the fabled send was not going to happen today.

Last weekend, Napoleon and I had pounded, drilled and cussed our way around P2. What had started as a hand traverse became a footledge; trees were felled, and above all, Napoleon sweated, something he usually avoids unless he is two feet above his last three cams. Anyway we fantasised ourselves into thinking that we were ready roll.

So the email shit-talking started, plans were made, and then on Friday night emails from Driller came. Now Driller, who is moving up in the world of accounting, has a new Friday night ritual-- getting pissed with his bosses. This is actually much like his old Friday night ritual, except now he isn't sitting outside an Atco in the middle of a seismic line, swilling Coors Light with Randy the Cokehead and getting ready for twelve hours on the drill. No, now he goes to Global in Yaletown with his shi-shi bosses and gets plastered on drinks with at least seven ingredients.

I told him "See you at 7!" and the first late-night email from Driller was this:

Ok sounds good, I'm half fucked at the moment. Had a
Patttner / bad ass junior drink off meeting. Will be reasyvdor tomorrow. -d

Then came the second email: Yo hope your ready to lead cause I'm half driunk from a good night of corporate bonding that needed to happen -d

And finally: Maybe let's leave at 8 -d

So of course I didn't actually GET these till Sunday. So The Driller appeared, woozy on his feet, at 7 AM, his neighbours cursing my Singng And Sending Excitement, which was shared by the crows and swallows in the trees.

The Driller was much, much worse for the wear, even after an injection of McDonald's and coffee directly into his veins. But then, it occurred to us that on this day, the big send was very much in the tradition of The Filth, whose epic drinking engagements have led to more than one woozy tie-in. In Fact, the Driller was so out of it that he was rocking the Euro Shorts Look.




Here is a word from our sponsors, without which there would be no sending. Well actually that's misleading-- we havn't sent anything yet, and, well, we actually paythem, which as nearly as I can tell is how sponsorship is not supposed to work...but we will pretend that these corporations are in fact all supporting us.


Napoleon and Ian today had instructions to clean the fixed ropes off the top of the route. Napoleon-- who does not read emails, despite havng his CrackBerry surgically grafted to his hand-- and I argued over how to clean the ropes off the traverse. I finaly trusted that Neil would be able to figure this out. Driller and I walked to the base, put on an almost normal climbing outfit (with drill and bolts in a pack) and I fired into the V-slot.

Well it quickly became obvious-- well, for non-smart people like me-- that when you spend an entire day dumping rocks and dirt off one pitch and onto another, the lower pitch will be dirty. So I hung on a nut, thrashed higher, and then moved into the bolted crux that Napoleon and I had cleaned two weeks before. There was only one problem...the slabby crux was the last place to dry out, the bolts were in the wrong spot, and the moves were very hard. So I climbed to the top of the pitch, brought up the Driller, and we used what limited brainpower we had for Plan B.

Well Plan B was what Plan A should have been-- ten feet to the right of our cleaned line and th bolts that Napeloen had placed was a crack!

A base jumper drifted past, then some twigs, then some screams, and then a whistling rushing sounds just like in the movies, and finally a tree-smashing crash of rocks. Napoleon and Ian were cleaning. I was a bit worried-- Napoleon, Driller and I had tried to kill Perry Beckahm a few times with rocks (and failed); now it was obviously my turn. But the boys missed us. So we hacked, tore, stomped and scrubbed, and by day's end we had a 35m crack pitch with a very nice layback finish ready to go.

We left with Ian and Napoleon dinking around on the Shit Pillar...which is basically a "get the f**k out of here!" move, considering the thing weighs probably 40 tons and will when it finally falls off make it all the way out to the Mamquam. What was really funny was imaginign hwo much Napoleon would whine abotu having to walk the 1.5km up to the Grand Wall lot to retrieve hsi car, heh heh. Anyway, I got Ian's report of the day. Now I also got Napoleon's...and comparing the two goes to show that, if you go to University (which Napoleon has done, and Ian not) you will un-learn writing skills. So here's Ian's story of their day.



As I sit here typing away on probably the last nice climbing-weather morning of the summer season, I wonder "What the fuck is wrong with me? Why don't I go climbing??" Similar thoughts ran through my head as I rolled up to Epic Napoleon's house Saturday morning, only having partially satiated my subconscious with a whopping 4 hours sleep the night before. I think it's a necessary requirement to be slightly drugged by lack of sleep to go up and work on this project, seeing as our two main "heroes" don't shut the fuck up about each other and it's nice to be able to sorta tune them out, drifting off and fantasizing about the reason for my nocturnal woes... Epic informs me that he is similarly challenged and I think that maybe I'm in luck and he'll be too tired to whine and complain about Chris today: "Teacher teacher! That bully pulled my hair on the playground!"

Well you can't win 'em all.

Just as we're pulling together gear from the melee of Epic's trunk to start our way up the Backside trail, a car full of American girls pulls up and gets real friendly-like real fast. I'm somewhat of a Cassa-novice, but before you can say, "Hey Epic are you making me carry the rope up again?" he's recruited them to hike the trail with us, maybe hoping to slap his way up another backside or two. It's always funny to listen to Epic's synopsis of female encounters. It never really matters to him if I'm interested in a girl or not, cause "Dude she liked you, you shoulda moved in!" is the standard Epic response. He kind of assumes that everybody is as stoked as he is to have the biggest Little Black Book on the planet. [We are all going to be VERY curious to see Epic Napoleon's little Crack book...the man is a s secretive as Stalin's secret police about his love life].

So anywho, we get to the top of "The Deputy" - as I am trying to christen the wall that the project is on - and put on a bit of a show for our entourage as we begin our rappel down the face with the objective of removing the fixed lines. It was pretty mellow for the most part rapping down my climbing rope, unfixing gear, ropes, and pounding out the odd piton bashed in 90 degrees to the uhh.... wrong way. Good thing the gumbies theme has already been covered in this blog. The only minor clusterfuck was on the traverse pitches as you might be able to imagine. If not, well .... rappelling sideways = suckfest.

Nonetheless we made it to the steep part of the wall and Epic informed me we need to warm up for the Wet-Like-Your-Wife [second crux] pitch so we did a TR of the one above [P10] in our approach shoes. Damn is that gonna be a fine pitch. Wow. The only thing I didn't like refers to something I've learned over the years of climbing; when you grab a hold, especially a big one, it shouldn't make any noise.

Oh right, this is still a project.

"Uh Epic?"

"What? [I'm pimping bitches on my Crackberry; Leave me alone!]"

"Make sure your helmet's on tight, this thing might go for a bit of a ride!"

"Oh shit......"

Now I'm sure he was emotionally returned to the initial days of this project, when he was belaying Chris aiding up and releasing buckets of rock and dirt, when the first rocks I let loose sailed past his face, but it was nothing compared to the 40 lb block that came off. I set it against a tree not really knowing what to do with all that widow-making power [Epic Napoleon is married??], and lowered off. Epic didn't really have to think very hard when he got to the top; he made his way along the little ledge and took the block for its first and last flight lesson as I screamed warnings to Chris, Dylan and potentially even Perry Beckham. And I must say: trundling, though inadvisable in most normal circumstances, IS REALLY FREAKING SWEET! I got about 15 years younger as that thing crashed down in a blast of erosional fury.

But it was back to work for me as I explored and cleaned the overhanging left-leaning Wet-Like-Your-Wife pitch of 5.12 madness, so named because of its perpetual seep. [This would be Napleon's wife, since he has such sexual prowess that women-- and not just his wife-- need fresh udnerwear after even the mnere thought of him] I doubt the seep will be the crux of the pitch, and once you're through it you are WAY stoked because the rest is far too cool with some pretty wild moves on it. However, if this sounds like something you feel compelled to avoid (don't let the name scare you off) this pitch is on the block to get bypassed with a very large bolt ladder.

That was it for us that day, Epic needed to get down so we blasted down the remaining fixed lines and caught various rides back to the car, one of which involving a second-person extrication of Epic from his sardine-like predicament.

Ok folks-- on Sunday the 4thof Oct, Napoleon and I are hoping to free the first half of the route. The send is, uhh, nigher...

Day 20: The Send Is Nigh

Our dear readers know that this blog has some recurrent motifs-- Napoleon not being organised, things taking forever, talking shit, and people posing on routes way above (or below) their limits, and of course the old question-- To Bolt Or Not To Bolt. I am proud to report that on Sunday, ALL of our recurrent themes were played out.

First, Napoleon did not show up at the appointed hour ready to go. We'd divided the jobs the evening before: I would buy the 20 bolts necessary for the ladder, and Napoleon would buy the two-foot socket wrench necessary for bolt chopping. So after the usual hour-long delay, we set off up the trail, putting up our now-standard "stay away; Gumbies On Crack will kill you" warnings, and we marveled at how wet the approach was. Indeed at one point we walked through a shower. Late-- check.

When we arrived Napoleon announced that "the community" did not approve of the idea of the bolt ladder I proposed for bypassing our second crux pitch. We won't name names of those members of "the community" but I found it funny-- most people, even with binoculars, can't see the pitch in question...and Napoleon has not even been ON the pitch in question! I was reminded of how the religious right freaks out about movies that they don't like, usually without seeing them, or how recently an African-Canadian (or black, whatever you're suppsoed to say) family in Ontario wanted to censor To Kill A Mockingbird...even though the book is anti-racist! Anyway, whatever. Talking smack-- check.

So then Napoleon climbed up P1 and I started upt he project pitch rope. So naturally we had an Aid Race and I must say Napoleon is stilla bit ahead of me in the jugging game. Here is us hanging and cleaning, err, I mean, posing.
I was expecting an hour's work and then up to the bolt ladder...but we ended up spending the entire day cleaning P2. Which was slow but kind of fun-- we knocked some absolutely massive rocks off. Napoleon also used a handsaw to cut down a surprsingly thick tree, and then he had to jug down to dislodge the thing from the crack it had wedged itself into. Meanwhile, I excavated the P2 traverse, which is now MUCH safer (3 bolts) and easier (most of it can be walked). I thought we would have a hand-traverse, which is what happened when I aided the pitch the first time...but you cut out a cedar shrub, you rip on the roots, and boom!, a block comes off, and now you have a ledge. Things taking longer than expected-- check.

Here we have young Napoleon getting antsy. After all, it has been about four hours since he last set foot in Starbucks.



Now when lowering Napoleon off the traverse, our young hero was not too happy...so I videotaped him cussing away. Those who have not aid climbed (or whatever it is that Napoleon, Driller and I do) will wonder, gee, what are all those ROPES for? Well clearly they are for bondage (of Napoleon) and domination (of our fears).



We finally rapped down the project pitch and installed a rap station 25 meters down, so you can now get off the route if it rains, or if your significant other calls and decides that you should Pick Up Arugula Right Now! which obviously takes precedence over The Climb, because Michelle Obama does it.

On returning, I got an email from The Yankee, a man with whom I have been talking trash for a number of years. The Yankee and Napoleon are quite adept at snipping away at each other, which is kind of entertaining, but would be better if they were ever in the same room to do so. Or maybe that would explode the fabric of space time, or be like Tyler Durden and Jack sharing space-- chaos! Anyway, The Yankee proposed that instead of making a bolt ladder, we install gym holds. Which would look something like this. I know, it sounds ridiculous...but how bad would it really be? You pull and stand on holds instead of bolts, and every third bolt has a hanger on it. "You call it A0," said The Yankee, "and then some sick fuck will free it at 5.19C and then, well, then you take the holds off and you have a totally free route." Which might work...except at that point, standards, even for gumbies like me, will have risen so high that the pitch the ladder bypasses will be a mere walk in the park at wet 5.12b.

Anyway, we will likely be stymied not by ethics, aesthetics, or a sense of tradition....but rather by cheapness and laziness. Imagine hauling a hundred pounds of plastic up there! I am too lazy, and Napoleon would certainly rather be in Starbucks, and Driller, well, Driller I am guessing would not be a fan.

But ANYWAY...next weekend it is High Noon for the bolt ladder. I'm going in with a drill, 20 bolts and maybe even a rock rack. Stay tuned...the send is nigh!

Day 19: Mystery Solved and The Return of Napoleon

Those following this creation epic know that God (me) both manages (climbs) and despairs (Naploeon) at His creation (the route). Now, while I am a God, I am much more like one of the ancient Greek gods (or a Soprano)-- vengeful, petulant, flawed, ambitious, magnificent-- than a Judeo-Christian abstract-perfect-type Deity. So as the route unfolds, as we create the world which more and more demands all of our attention, We watch with some trepidation and more delight as the World takes shape, and Napoleon less quickly. (I get to use the Royal We, which Mark Twain said should be used only by kings, editors, people with tapeworms and first ascentionists).

So today Driller and I heard rumours of Napoleon and one Ian Bennet going up and cleaning the route. Driller and I set up at the crack of 9:35, after I forgot matches for my smokes in Napoleonic style. If there is one thing that passes time at aid belays, it is smoking, a Thomas Pynchon novel, and an MP3 player. Well, three things the first two of which I had. Driller laughed as I crammed Against The Day into my pack-- at 1100 pages the heaviest thing, outside of maybe Proust, you could bring on a route. But then Mr Pynchon, like a good aid pitch, demands slow and meticulous attention, and provides less than obvious rewards (although at the en dof both, a beer or two are certainly in order).

Long story short (unlike Pynchon's), we jugged to the top of P10, I cleaned and put another bolt into P11 (this is the shittiest pitch on the route but it iwll be fast and easy) and then Driller and I had a gander at the o/w pitch 12. This pitch needs one #5 Camalot and two #6, so we installed two bolts. YOu will be able to do it with one #5-- OK, it's lamer than cramming two 6s in there, but hwo many 5.11 climbers do YOU know who have a quiver of #6s?

At the top of P12 Driller set off up the fixed rope to see what Mystery Pitch 13 would be like. Napoleon and I had rapped down it, but weren't sure the route woudl go where the fixed line was. Drillerjugged up six meters, smacked a couple of loose flakes with the crowbar, and anounced that it would be "easy." And for once this turned out not to be just wishful thinking-- we installed three bolts, and we figure there will be one or two 10a moves on this, and what looks like a bomber crack (which we bolted)...because both flakes beside are resoundlingly hollow, at least when you have Leroy The Friendly Crowbar to help you out. (Leroy is NOT so friendly when the IRA, or the Hell's Angels, hire him for persuasive purposes). After this, Driller added a last bolt to the traverse pitch. You could live without it...but if you fell, you would saw your rope over a sharp edge, and you would swing smack into blocks. Then we retreated, and extended Napleon's precious 200 meters of ninety-pound static line down to the top of P7, from which we hung the white static line, and from which we will try to clean the second 5.12 pitch, and drill the bypass bolt ladder.

Now while all this was happening there woudl be the occasional cloud of power and shower of pebbles from above. Could it be? Was it possible? Was Napoleon off his ass and doing work? I had heard rumours, but Napoleon, he who is addicted to his Crackberry, had not replied. But on returning to the normal world, I got the following from Napoleon. Napoleon worked the route with Ian Bennet, the son of Neil Bennet, author of The Grim Reaper (seriously sick Squamish slab...fifty meter pitches with one bolt; pussies need not apply). Ian is becoming a pretty awesome climber in his own right and, mroe to the point-- he can shit-talk with the best of them, having suggested that I name our route "The Jerry Springer Show" because both Napoleon and I complain about each other so much). Here is Napoleon's email, with comments, most likely sent by Napoleon from his car, while driving:

The day according to Napoleon:

"Uh, Napoleon?"
"Yes Ian what's up?"
"What did I get myself into?"
"Work, lots of work, but it'll be fun and by the end of the day you'll
be a dreamer".

This summarizes the overall sentiments of the day in addition to the pleasure
of not having to deal with a whining 12 year old trapped in a 40 year old's body [or of having to deal with a whining eight-year-old trapped in a twenty-six year old's...].
The sun was out with a slight breeze and I got a little excited thinking about
[Chris' girlfriend's] body [you know you're a Facebook creepr when...] sort of like the Lonely Island's song when he greets the cashier in the grocery store except in this case she was applying the moisturizing agent all over her face ["Beware, my lord, of jealousy. It is the green eye'd monster that mocks the meat on which it doth feed"]

The hike up the chief: The Blackberry went off as usual [you know you're an incipient yuppie cunt when...] and I figured it was
a) Chris bitching about something on the route b) Chris bitching about if we were
on the route or c) Chris bitching that we should actually be doing work on the route. [Napoleon, like a small child, has not internalised essential basic climbign behaviours, such as getting on the route with your body, rather than staring at a digital photo and fantasising lines] I'm happy to report that I did not answer the phone and left the crying sob to his own mess at some pitch somewhere on the wall; hopefully he was getting covered in dirt/moss [Yes I was; that's what happpens when you work]. Driller [and Chris] did an amazing job, we later discovered, of drilling the mystery pitch at 5.11- [that Napoleon, who sprays of his Zombie Roof attempts, shoudl find this 11-, is weird].

Ian's first reaction to the route from the top-down was "this is going to be a great fucking route!" was excited to bring him along for the mission and equally excited when I found out he was enjoying the experience. Ian set off to scrub out the rest of the V slot and make it climbable and I did the same on the undercling traverse [Napoleon as you may now see is OCD...the pitch needs to be cleaner than his ass, and a guy who takes twenty mineutes to take a dump has most certainly got a whistle-clean anus] These top two pitches are now ready to go. We rapped then next pitch and gave it a once-over with the wire brush and our recommendation was the following: there needs to be another bolt on this pitch as the climbing would be run out otherwise with no pro [we will see about that].

Likewise, the bolt at the top of the V slot should be relocated such that it is on the big ledge on the right, making an easy exit [so are you going to do it, or just talk about it?].

The 3rd last pitch needs a fixed rope during a free ascent along the terrace as it is loose and dangerous [no, it needs one bolt; fixed ropes rot].

Part of the way down i could hear Chris yelling out my name and I couldn't figure out whether this was just a natural reaction to being on the route or he actually knew I was there [or because Napoleon was trying to kill us with bombing from above?]. In any case it was another usual day on the route with
Chris being perpetually disatisfied by something and letting everyone know how he felt [this from the man who insisted we bolt a crack so that his fears of death-by-bombing be allayed].

The 4th last pitch looked great and the loose flakes at the start of the pitch need to get removed.

The offwidth and 5.12- variation look excellent as well. I'm not sure if I agree with the position of the bolts but they will do the trick [read: "I could do this thing with nly one #4, I am such a hardman"].

I rapped down to the top of pitch 9 to discover that some idiot had taken the remaining section of 200m rope out of the bag when i told him specifically to leave it up there and fixed it at lower level. When will this dumb fuck ever learn to listen to instructions? [How did Napoleon plan on cleaning the second 5.12 pitch? Having led not one pitch on the route so far, despite (Namedrop) Having Taken An Aid-Climbing Course With Matt Maddaloni one wonders why he complains about hanging a fixed rope off it].

The rest of the day proved uneventful and we applied a once over with the brush on the pitches. Ian had some ideas of including some variations along the length of the climb and I think he has some great ideas. He attempted to climb the Shit Pillar while on a grigri and it didn't move! Maybe this is a possibility but a scary one. He is also psyched to attempt the Project pitch after a 2 hour cleaning Session!

All in all a great day! Chris is like the divorced wife I have never had [you can't have a "divorced wife"-- you can have either a wife, or a divorce] and sooner or later we're going to rope up and Free this thing!

Day 18: The Janitors and the Advisor

You all know that we really have two projects on the go here-- one is the route, the other is Napoleon. The first is self-explanatory; the second, well, much like a certain kind of student, young Napoleon is working on skills such as being organised, being on time, actually showing up to work, working rather than chasing women, and prioritising spending. This last, well, you know how it is with kids-- you give them two bucks and they tear off to 7-11 and buy 40 pieces of candy which are gone in sixty seconds, after which they want mooooore. So it is with Napoleon: if there is a Starbucks within two kilometers, he will find his way there, like lemmings to the sea or hipsters to ironic t-shirts.

So I am pleased to announce Napoleon's report card so far: he gets C for showing up, a B for being on-time (significant progress), a C for working rather than chasing women (this is a guy who has so many women in his sights that it makes all the blood rush to the wrong part of one's body) and an A for having a desire to put upa new route. Note that desire does not equal work, or, as DOA put it, talk - action = zero. OK, he comes out to a B- overall but that's progress compared to last year, when the only thing worse than his punctuality was his cardio.

Anyway our last mission was janitorial: we wanted to clean three pitches and so being the civil thoughtful guys we are, we started with an argument: do we approach pitches 9,10 and 11 from ground up or top-down? Fixed ropes all the way-- you could get a pretty decent jugging workout on our route-- which was faster? Well it takes 20 min to approach and about 1 hour to jug to the top of P9, which I did; young Napoleon decided, fuck that, he would hike to the top of the Chief and then do some rapping. Fair play to you, Napoleon-- but you have to haul a rope to rap the last 2 pitches, then you have endles fiddling with the short fixing ont he way down...I beat Napoeon to it by an hour and fifteen, and Napoleon scared me shitless by dislodging something that crashed into the ledge atop P9 and sent dirt and pebbles cascading down on me.

But work got done. P9 was scrubbed; the off-width/layback/whatever pitch is now clean; we have clearted the brush from P10 and installed one bolt on it, and moved the P9 anchor. This is the shittiest pitch on the route-- scrambling up mossy blocks-- but it's fast and easy. P10 also looks like it has an alternative, an 11- or so tips dihedral which Driller and I will clean next time out. Napoleon hurt a rib and so sat around for awhile.

We finally rapped off, and as I was sliding down the ropes, it hit me: this thing is turning into a route! it used to be, we would go out, aid up, clean, drill, etc. But after 18 days on the wall, we now have an end in sight. We know where all but one of the pitches go; we are cleaned except for P2, we are drilled except for bits of P2 and a bolt ladder...the end is nigh!

Afterward we ran into Jeremy Frimer and his pal Matt McComb (sorry if I spelled those wrong) at Starbucks, where Napoleon, after drinking enough coffee to wake a horse, fell asleep right when the conversation got interesting. Frimer has put up some pretty cool routes (e.g. Optimus Prime on the Squaw)) and has become one of the go-to guys in Squamish when it comes to cleaning and restoration. Frimer made three points worth putting out there regarding our route. things that had been talked about a bit on Squamishclimbing:

a) Make it accessible to stop the moss. The easier the grade, the more traffic, which means less re-growth, the bane of routes in Squamish. You can aid our first 5.12 pitch (the dihedral); we might build a bolt-ladder bypass for the second 5.12 pitch because it's often wet, it's hard to aid (undercling) and a bypass would not interfere with the pitch itself. Plus, doing this would make the grade 5.11 A0 rather than 5.12, so more folks would try it.

b) Make the crap easy. If your route has crappy pitches, make it so that the shit isn't hard or stressful, because that is what people will remember. If you are having a wild, adrenlin-filled climb on a perfect splitter, that's one thing...but having a bowel-loosening epic on run-out or wet choss is quite another. You'll go back for the first, but run screaming from the second. Frimer pointed out that he bolted the first five meters of Right Wing (even though you can put gear in) because that section is so frequently wet that it will shut may parties down...and so the rest of the route then won't get done. Frimer says he's had no objections to this bit of bolting. When he talked to first ascentionist Fred Beckey about the route, Beckey said "well when we climbed it, it was really HOT! Can't recall any water on it" which Frimer rightly took as a "son, you have my blessings." So with that in mind I will add a few bolts to P10 (shittiest pitch on the route) so people will be able to blast through it and not dig for gear in moss.

c) Think carefuly about required gear. P11 is an (easy-- 5.10-, we think) offwidth (or easy layback, or au-cheval thrutch). You would need one or two #5s and one #6 Camalot to do this. Now...how much big gear do folks own, or want to haul? Not that many have the big stuff. And considering that you need a rack of doubles t 4" for our route, throwing a #5 and 6 on there might be off-putting...so we may add one bolt to that pitch so only 1 #5 is required.

The real question here is ego. If you want to be purist/hardcore/elitist/ whatever, then no bolt ladder, no bolt on o/w and no bolts on shit pitch. Big ego = small #s climbing your route = regrowth. If you make options, however, you get more people on route.At this point, I am frankly inclined to go for mass, not moss, popularity. We, like the Jews and then Jesus in the desert, will have had forty man-days at work, and it would be cool if those days turned into something the rest of Squamish could enjoy n years to come. Thanks, Jeremy, for the discussion!

The Drop Zone

The following is a picture of Middle Caramba Terrace where we are working. If you are planning on crossing this terrace to go to Ultimate Everything or Upper Echelon, beware of rockfall on work days. Better to approach via Apron or South Gully routes. We will put cleaning advosories physically in the Apron parking lot, at the Badge trailhead, and online on and on .

Days 16 & 17: Bolts, Bombs and Bottle Rockets

The weekend's theme, it would turn out later, would be idiocy. We, being idiots, did not know this as we set off with a thousand pounds of water and gear to the top of the Chief.

After explaning to about fifteen parties of hikers the purpose of the massive gardening shears and crowbar attached to my pack, like an itinerant tinker's last-minute must-sells, we staggered to the top and suited up. This basically meant taking most of that thousand pounds out of the pack and strapping it to one's harness. Driller and I then rapped into the V-slot, past the undercling and to the top of what we called (for now) The Munge Pitch, so named because, well, it is a mass of shit that is more suited to planting a garden or meditating in than climbing. I rapped off that and onto the Top Traverse, and started clearing the top traverse. Driller hung on the Munge Pitch and began cleaning.

It was at this point that a voice floated out at us from climber's left warning us that we were bombing the ground. Now, we had been under the impression that nobody (except Perry Beckham, once in May, when sending his newest project) used our access trail. There are no routes in or under our line. So we have not worried about rockfall. But this fellow seemed concerned, so we laid off the trundling and got back to drilling chopping and scrubbing.

This is the undercling pre-cleaning in evening light.


The day ended up being rewarding despite our sudden feeling of "oh shit we could have kileld somebody." We got the munge pitch 1/3 cleaned and it actually looks cool-- it will be gear and a sporty bolted finish at 5.10+. I got the top traverse walkable, and we ended up on the slab traverse, which we cleaned and to which we added two bolts. This one will have cool sideways move son friction and small incuts, with a bit of heady exposure-- you are traversing over a roof 300m off the deck! Here's Driller on the traverse.



So we jugged back out as the hazy ari turned smoky orange and then purple, and on the top of the Chief we guzzled water, whiskey and then curries and dals. We got drunk enough that i decided, wooo-hoo, let's make the whiskey bottle full of gas and Molotov-cocktail the fucker off the wall, which proposal the Driller ixnayed tout de suite. We then set up our five bottle rockets. One of them made it off the wall, two fizzled, one backfired into my pack, and one-- even after I soaked it in gas-- refused to light. So the evening's idiocy ended. We called Jewels, who put up a "warning-- rockfall" sign on the Badge trail and on squamishclimbing.com for us, and then we found sleeping places and passed out.

On Sunday we did more of the same: the V-slot was my job.
Four hours got the V done, then I headed over to the undercling and scrubbed that. Driller finished off the Munge Pitch, whihc is no longer full of crap-- it has 3 bolts finishing off a layback/stem crack and it will be pretty decent. With that we jugged out and walked off. On the way down, I stopped to wet my hair in the stream, and ended up falling in, much to my delight. Twenty-eight degrees and stoopid hyoomid, and I made a good show for the couple who were marvelling at how cold the water seemed...which to me felt like a warm bath.

Here's the Driller, meditating at the awesomeness of our line and the beauty of Squamish, slowly turning into a resort town for yuppies like me but also richer than me!


Today I spoke with Napoleon, who tells me that we have to be more careful regarding trundling: our access trail is apparently being used by guides taking clients to do The Ultimate Everything. So from now on we will post more warnings, online and physically, to make sure others are safe.

As of today, we have what I imagine will be six man-days left. We have to clean P2 and P9 (easy), clean the bottom of P11 and possibly install one bolt (if it's wider than 6"), clean the Munge Traverse (P10) and then remains the Mystery Pitch: P11. Napoleon and my fixed lines bypass this, so Driller and I will head up with a lead line and do this one ground-up. Plus the fixed ropes need to come off.

So, a good few days, a cautionary warning to us, and ever-closer to actually going climbing!

Day 15: The Longest Biener Chain in Squamish

Today's question: where are we going to PUT things? Where will our line go? Will it go where we think it will? Do we have enough ropes etc? But first...

Ihe Apron parking lot, at 9AM sharp, was the scene of may weirdnesses.

First, Tony McLane was there...in a new item of clothing. A bright pink hoody. Wearing-- err, I mean, "rocking," this with one of his usual Valley-Dirtbag-Circa-1977 headbands (today's coloured orange-- McLane may be poor, but the man has a quiver of bandanas ready to deploy at a moment's notice). I have never seent his man with anything not second hand. So I thought perhaps he'd been seduced by the dark side of a climbing sponsorship, or maybe Gotten A Girlfriend, or perhaps been abducted by (and replaced with) an Alien (the creature, not the cam). But no, apparently his Mother took an interest--let's not speculate on the reasons-- in her son's usual melange of cotton, polyester and duct-tape, and got him this stylish hoodie.

Second, there were NO CLIMBERS on this perfect bluebird of a day.

Third, Napoleon was on time. And he had already had breakfast, lunch, water, coffee, yadda. This occurence is usually about as likely as, say, my psycho ex girlfriend being civilised, or the moon turning green, or all the hipsters suddenly disappearing from Main Street as their fixie bikes all mysteriously catch a deadly infection at the same moment.

So after taking it all in, we loaded up and started the hike up the Chief. Today's mission: rap the route from the top, clear away brush and boulders, and connect to Driller and my high point.

So as we "hiked" we passed the usual clusters of tourists, and were passed by one trail runner, adn then we ran smack into the ass-end of a Lady Train: two English of a certain age, and their twentysomethign offspring. Of course Napoleon and I moved immediately into flirt-with-stranger mode. My tactic which is not rally a tactic, since it's the only thign I know how to do, was to shit-talk. Since Miss Offspring was a kinesiology student from Toronto, I asked her why she was walking so slowly, my impression being that Kinesiology grads were basically ex-jocks who when not lifting weights were busy training for triathlons. When she said "hey, you guys are climbers, you should be fit, move faster!" I told her to run ahead, I was about to take my shirt off, and I didn't want any woman chaos. I got a few giggles for that.

Napoleon tried an older strategy: "Oh, you're from Toronto TOO?" He didn't get a giggle but he got the usual exchange of what-did-you-study. Then Miss offspring turned on her inner deer and bounded up the trail, giving us a clear view of her tail. Now it could be because my girlfriend is not only the hottest woman I have ever been with (and smart too, well, smarter than me at any rate) but because she also has the finest ass in the Universe (yes, Angelina Jolie, you are a distant second; suck it up, Pitt) but Miss Offspring's butt didn't do much for me. Napoleon on the other hand was convinced that not only was she flirting with him, but that her assets were in fact of finest quality. Well, she was aiming for the first, second AND third summits, one of which we would reach, and so, said Napoloeon, he would work his angle later and see if she could be invited out for a beer. Obviously I am not on the market, but if I were, dear Readers, who would have a better chance with the young lady? Post a comment and let us know!

OK, back to climbing.

Here is Napoleon rapping off the very top.



What followed was basically the construction of the world's longest biener chain. With a few chunks of fixed rope added. We rapped the V-slot and the right side looks STUNNING-- it will be a perfect large-hands crack, in a cool position, in a really interesting feature.



Under the v-slot is a leftward undercling under a massive roof. Under THAT we got into serious gardening and rock trundling, with a freaking-out Napoloen bellowing about short-fixes while I blithely sailed off into thickets and snags. It didn't help that cutting one too many big branches finally destroyed my beloved pruning shears, and so for the rest of the day we thrashed downward, making intermittent progress, like a Platonist in a conference of post-Modernism, or like a stoned dirtbag in the candy aisle at 7-11. We also had about 200m too much static line-- which weighs a fucking TON-- so there was a lot of clusterfucking with ropes, yadda.

Here is Pitch 11-- removing two bushes and about ten feet of moss will make a cool 5.10+ o/w pitch (well a layback really).


The exploration ended with an epic thrash through brush to Driller and my high point.
Napoleon looked like a stoned racoon with dirt and sweat rings around his eyes. I looked like a prisoner of war loaded with a thousand pounds of gear and the route looked like a massive gardening project.

So finally we had the answer to the first question: where is our line? The route is now more-or-less set, with just a few things to figure out on 2 pitches. We have 90% of our bolting done. What will emerge is an 18-pitch free route that goes to the very top of the Chief, with some 5.12 on it, a huge variety of climbing, some serious exposure in parts, and you could potentially lengthen our route by adding a few others to it.

Here's me and Young Napoleon ready to shop for some Work Wear


Much like Mexican machistas, who at cantinas keep the evening's beer and brandy bottles on the table to not only help the server keep track of the tab but also to show the rest of the cantina how manly they are for drinking so much, Napoleon keeps all of his Starbucks garbage IN HIS CAR just in case anybody fails to see how much he REALLY likes Starbucks. And HERE was the end of our day...we knew where the route would go, but where was I supposed to put my goddamned feet?

Day 13

I didn't think one bit about possible bad luck this morning as I raced up to Squamish to meet-- wait for it-- Napoleon! The man has finally learned a few things about priorities. He spent yesterday pos-- err, I mean, climbing, on The Opal, which would be a great route to pose on except only people climbing Rock On can see you, and they are usually busy doing things like fighting with their significant other who is also (unfortunately) their climbing partner, or dealing with serious rope drag, or freaking out cos the end of the crux pitch is wet. (I have been involved in all of these activities and a few more). So Napoleon's posing strategy failed. Well, not quite, his buddy Neil saw him take a big one...raising the question of what exactly Neil was doing on Rock On, he having neither climbing-partner-girlfriend, rope-drag issues or fear of water...was he perhaps having a thoroughly enjoyable time of it? Hmmm...

Really you want to pose at, say, Zombie Roof (5.13a) which has become the new must-do route in Squamish, now that hard gear climbing, thanks to Sonny T and Will S and that Scottish cunt, is cool again after taking a 20-year bolt-induced vacation. It must suck to be a sport climber these days (who is Dave Graham again?) cos seriously, what is cooler-- 5.14 with 50 foot whippers onto ripping stacks of shaky blue Aliens, or 5.14 with "take" hissed at the camera? See, at Zombie Roof, you can breathe in the vapour trail of Peter Croft (50 this year and still putting up 12+ routes ground up), shred your fingers, grunt massively as you try to be a combination of Dean Potter, Spiderman and Captain Kirk from Star Trek 3 (?) with the free-solo-El-Cap-safely-in-gravity-boots, and, best of all, YOU CAN TRY TO IMPRRESS ALL THE GUMBIE CHICKS ON THEIR WAY TO BELAY THEIR BOYFRIENDS ON MOSQUITO. Or you could be Katy Holm and impress all the gumbie boys going to belay/impress their girlfriends on Mosquito (and you could do this either with your mad climbing skillz, or your amazing arms...but only if you were Katy). You sit there, suck-- err, I mean, massaging bloody knuckles, saying "yea feels soft for 13a" or perhaps "I used too much gear on that burn, maybe I'll just use the one fixed nut when I send." And the women, well, "da bitches go nutz when I walk in da room" or on the Roof as the case may be.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yea, Napoleon. So Napoleon got the first part of his posing out of the way Friday, the same day that I did some posing, err, climbing of my own at Nightmare Rock, with Jewels the Chick, of the famous Jewelz and Fergie, uhh, fame. Anyway I WANTED to pose but I was so soft, weak and timid-- like a plastic fork in piping hot pie, or icecream on a baking summer day-- that I couldn't manage anything like a decent pose, especially after watching some hardman throw himself at a 13c while being videotaped. No, I was a model climber-- scared, shaky and hanging off every piece and bolt I could find; you couldn't have taken a decent photo of me doing anything other than attentively belaying Jewels.

(Speaking of filming climbing, has anybody noticed how people being filmed while climbing don't swear? The work is all "sh*t!f*ck!c*unt-*ssed motherf*cker!" then on video it's all "ujm, urgh, HUNH! gosh, I really need to, you know, focus my fifth chakra's energy" Hindu yadda yadda rama rama harihari...at least Chris Sharma is smrt, oops, I mean, SMART enough to include himself cracking up while making one of his Mystical Reflections On Climbing in the DVD extras section of "King Lines") So like I said, I was a green toy made of Plasticene that you could have (and Squamish did) drape over a chair like a blanket or one of those idiotic Dali watches.

So anyway, where was I? Oh yes, Napoleon. Napoleon has arrangments to Take A Girl CLimbing on Sunday, so today he deigned to help do some gardening. So we hung off P1, and of course everything fucked up. Napoleon fucked up one bolt, so we now have a total of FOUR of our own bolts we need to chop on this route. You know you're a gumbie when... Then I nearly killed Napoleon with a rock. Then at day's end we discovered that jugging on my rope had worn through the sheath: bye bye, oddly bland blue-grey 70. At day's end, thanks to Napoleon, and Tony McLane in May, we have 90% of P1 cleaned, 1.5 bolts drilled, and plans to go and work on the top of the Chief-- we will try to hang that 200m static line off the right end of the High Ledge and then connect to Driller and my high point. If we do a really good job, we should have a spectacular place to pose near the tourist chicks...and a good view of Zombie Roof.

Day 12: Solo mission

Well yesterday it was 30 degrees in Squampton, so after gong to Starbucks and loudly yabbering on about the gear necessary for Zombie Roof and how easy the 11c pitch on Alaska Highway felt, I headed up solo to do something more in line with my real mad skillz; gardening.

I jugged to our high point, grabbed the gardening tools, and as I put myself on rap, I felt this weird sensation. It took me awhile to figure it out-- it was fear. Not that I am a bold and fearless climber (hells no, I have handed off my share of the sharp end, thanks Jones and Janez) but because well I was 250m above ground, in an untraveleld part of the Chief, alone.

After a fairly sketchy session of removing the fixed rope from the Green Line traverse, I got to the top of the dihedral, and started shoveling dirt and rocks off it. This might seem unnecessary...but believe me, when you top out of the dihedral (and its cruxes are at the beginnign and the end), you want to not be pawing at munge.

After I removed allt he dirt from the top, I then removed it all from the middle of the pitch, and then I cleaned it all out of the handcrack pitch. So basically I moved the same load of crap three times. But anyway let's put it this way-- the dihedral pitch is now as clean as a stripper's ass, and the handcrack, well, it's a dirty-assed ho, but you can sink your mitts in and not pull buckets of gunge out.

So tomorrow-- and I know you all will not believe this-- the elusive Napoleon is comign out and we are going to do P1 and maybe P2. Yes folks Napoleon theoretically exists and I will see him bright and early tomorrow at 8!

Pitch info etc as of July 28

Grades and lengths are guesses.

Aborted/delayed P1&P2 (55m) Aided & fallen off of by Chris. Partly drilled by Chris & Napoleon.

P1 25m 5.9? Aided by Chris & Kasper. Cleaned partly by Tony McLane.
P2 30m 5.10a FA Chris, cleaned (somewhat) by Chris & Kasper.
P3 30m 5.10D/5.11a? Aided by Chris, cleaned Chris, Dylan Connelly
P4 30m 5.10a (?) Aided by Chris, cleaned by Chris
P5 35m 5.12a? Aided/drilled & cleaned Dylan Connelly
P6 30m, 5.7? Cleaned & drilled by Chris
P7 20m 5.12a? Aided by Dylan, cleaned (somewhat) by Chris
P8 15m 5.10a or 5.10c? Aided by Chris & Dylan, cleaned by Chris
P9 30m 5.9? Aided & drilled Dylan

Day 9 &10:

After the nut and the cam ripped, and I fell backward 8 meters into space, the stove-sized flake I'd been standing on cracked and tumbled toward me.


* * *

Dilly and I arrived at the route Saturday in Napoleonic style: neither of us had had coffee, water or breakfast that morning, so thank God for McDonalds, with whom we are in negotiations for sponsorship. We are, by the way, selling sponsorships on the route. Basically, the harder the pitch, the more money we want. McDonalds wants the 12- dihedral so that will obviously be Open Big Mac. Dolce & Gabana are interested in the long crack so that will be the Damn I look Hot! pitch etc.

Here is a picture of the Shit Pillar, a death-waiting-to-happen semi-detached feature that thank God we don't have to climb past. Dilly is jugging up and is praying that the Shit doesn't come down on him.



This is a view down the route. Here, Dylan is about 10 meters below the start of the dihedral pitch. The bushes up and left are on the Green Line Ledge.





This is aid climbing...clusterf**king with wads of gear.





Anyway we sweltered up to the base then jugged to the trees, finisahed the water, then I set off on lead. I wore 1 trad rack, 1 drill, a shitload of bolts, yadda. Basically, leading on aid is to regular climbing what being in the Army and doing a forced 50 nmile training march (with full gear) is to going for a nice 10k.

I swung like a spastic, sluggish moneky through two trees, at which point above me came into view a massive knife-blade hanging flake. So I aided around it along the steep, overhanging left-trending v-slot. At its top I put in an A1 #2, then reached out and slotted a cam behind the top of the death flake, and then a nut and a cam higher. After I bounced them, I climbed free over the edge and found myself standing ona small shelf. Then my foot slipped and I tumbled backward toward the trees. When I stopped, the highest nut and cam I had placed were at my waist. I looked at Dylan through the tree branches.

"Hey," he said, putting down the binoculars, "those people over there on that other route, they are watching you. They just saw your awesome fall! Oh, and are you ok?"

I climbed back up, and tried slotting the nut and cam back in. Weirdly, they were too small for the crack where I'd placed them. So I pulled two bigger ones, stuck them in, and mantled over the lip again. I drilled, then pounded in a bolt. As I reached for the hanger, my foot slipped. I fell backward off the lip. And as I fell, I heard the nut and cam rip, and when I stopped, I heard a crack, and the stove-sized block above me blew and tumbled down.

Aid falls, I would realise later, are either no big deal, or deadly. You don't have time to be scared cos, unlike trad leads, you have no idea your pieces or feet are going to blow. And so you just fall-- no anticipation-- and either it's ok, or you get hurt. The huge block whooshed two feet from me and when it hit the wall 50 meters down, our position trembled. I asked Dilly to take over, then said "fuck it" and went back up-- the danger was over. And the irony was, the cam that had held two hug e ones was...the cam behind the death flake!

I finished the bolt, clipped, breathed, and headed up. eight feet up, I slotted in another cam, moved past it, and fell AGAIN. The cam ripped but thank God for the bolt. I handed the lead off to Dilly and belayed, dazed, stunned.

Dilly did a couple of dicey hook moves and then drilled a belay at the base of a loooong beautiful corner. We stashed our gear and rapped as a sick yellow light and odd swirly wind whooshed sround us. When we got to the car, a curtain of water ripped across the road and we headed for the pub.

On Sunday, we awoke to sweltering humidity and in true dirtbag style cooked brekkie at the base of the Grand while a series of climbers pulled up, glanced at the wall, and bailed when they saw the insanity of last night's rainstorm still coating the walls.

I jugged to our high point-- ah, only water and drill to haul today!-- but poor Dilly had left a jug on top, so he was humping with one jug and a gri-gri. No fun if you have a pack. At the high point, I discovered that Dilly had forgotten to anchor his jug and the hammer...now think about my massive block-ripping fall from yesterday. I hadn't noticed the crack widening. Dilly forgot to tie his gear down. I put it down to dehydration. No food, no water = dumb climbers.

At this point we had to decide-- up the dirty corner, with possibility of poor/no pro (read: slow and loads of drilling) or up the handcrack stuffed with loose flakes. We opted for the corner, which looked like this.



I know, it doesn't look awesome...but that's cos it's filthy. You wait till you climb it...you will be very pleasantly surprised.

Dilly set off up the dirty but beautiful corner while the gri-gri belayed him and I hung on my pitch from the day before, ripping out blocks and scrubbing. At day's end, I jugged up to the patch of forest where Dilly had built an anchor, and saw that he'd led upa magnificent corner that will go at 5.9 or so when it's had a scrub. We couldn't see a damned thing from the forest and we had the ladies waiting for their menfolk, so we stashed the aid rack and hardware, and sailed down.

Here's a pic of the dihedral, pre-cleaning, from our current high point.



Now, thanks again to Kevin McLane-- we will need his photo to see where we go next. I am hoping to get some climbing in in the Bugaboos, then back on he route mid-Aug. Blicker has said he will get on it soon, good, we need P1 and P2 cleaned, and...yea. We are nine, count 'em, NINE, pitches up! When this is done, we will have a 12-15 pitch 12- (or 11-A0) free route on an unclimbed part of the Chief. How cool is THAT?

The Electric Pepper Grinder

Ok, so...I am lying on my belly on the Green Line. Around my neck are a trad rack, a drill, and what feels like 50 other things. I am crammed into the last 20 feet of the Green Line and I can't move. And all I can think about is...Stovo's electric pepper grinder.

At breakfast, Stovo-- who remains fodder for all of our status-envy yuppie-cunt jokes-- busted out an electric pepper grinder. It whines, it grinds, it looks like a sex toy, and of course he got a really good deal on it, otherwise he would never have bought the damn thing. As I am lying on the ledge, I want an electric pepper grinder to clean the masses of bush and munge that are clawign at my waist. I want this to be quick and easy but instead I have Dilly laughing as I crawl thrash and snip.

"Hey are you sleeping there or what? How's that nice comfy ledge?" as he plays with his new iPhone. Fuck, they should make an iCleaner that deals with iLedges. Here's the view.

I took the rack off, hung it on a bolt, and thrashed forward. Looking back this is the Green Line munge-fest.




After a buttload of snipping, I fired in an anchorand brought Dilly over. It looked
something like this. Come to Papa, Dilly-boy! Yea baby. WORK that cave!




Dilly then started up the next pitch, the left-trneding overhanging hand crack. Whiel he led, the gri-gri belayed him and I clean the Green Line. There is a pleasant rhythm to the day-- you scrub, heave, trash-talk your partner, swig water, repeat. It's not the adrenal thrill of sending, but it's engaging. As Dilly neared the top of his pitch, I looked back, and the Green Line was clean. Satisfying. Good necessary work done.

Dilly fixed the newest static which belongs to The Filth, Dilly's brother in law. The Filth is currently travelling with his wife (hard to believe but this wonderful woman married him) in Nepal. The Filth's Patagonia organic hemp static line twanged down to Dilly as he pendulumed back and forth trying to get to the dihedral belay. I jugged an A1 probably 5.11+/12- pitch which other than a wee bit of moss is basically ready to climb.

At the belay I craned my head back as far as I could and saw only possibilities...up and left into a long corner? Up over an overlap into blocky cracks? The great joy of ground-up is that every day is new discovery. We could be doing this top down, but then it would just be filling in the obvious blanks. Colouring inside the lines. Following a blueprint. This way feels like we are going somewhere new.

Finally here is Dilly on rap at the middle of the 50m handcrack.

We rapped down and packed up. How awesome a feeling-- a traverse pitch drileld and cleaned, a new pithc led, mostly cleaned, and fixed. We now need only 3 loooong jugs to our high point, we have probably 2 mid 10 pitches to easier ground, and then it's wonly traversing to the V-slot. Stay tuned-- more on July 25th and 26th.

Day 7-- They had me standing on the Green Line

We got up early cooked for Stovo and Kim. Stovo has this small dog named Nuggett, who brings out what is either his inner gay man or his inner kindergarten teacher. The dog can high-five, nestle in a lap, sneeze etc at will. No Blicker.

We blasted up toward the Green line. Well, "blast" is probably not a good word since I had to learn how to haul. 3 in 1is easy but slow; straight through is hard but way faster. At the bottom of the dihedral pitch, I got on lead and worked up to the highest bolt. At this point, it was tense: you have to belly-flop onto a grassy ledge, without knocking rocks onto Dilly. I did it, and there I was, laying on my belly, all the crap still hanging over the edge, trying not to disturb anything. A whole lot of shifting and grunting later, I started to drill the anchor. I was crammed into the cave-like ledge, and twisted myself into a Gumbie, reaching up and around over my head with the drill. When the bolts were done, my arm was spaghetti. I brought Dylan up and then it was time to head out.

The Green Line is a horizontal band of what feels like sandstone. It is softer and flakier than granite. You have granite above, then this layer, then granite below. The sandstone erodes faster than the granite, so the ledge is a kind of mini-cave. I drilled the first few bolts about 7 feet aparts. It felt excessive, but I was scared shitless. I had no idea how solid the rock under the grass under our feet was, and a fall during the first bit of the traverse would mean a pendulum into the dihedral (read: many broken bones). And drilling was hard. You have to drill the granite above you, there are no holds on the granite, and so you stand up, push UP under the roof of the ledge with your left hand so you jam your body in, then you reach up over your head with your right hand and drill. Imagine holding a 25 pound cat-- twisting and yowling-- over your head, for 5 minutes, and if you drop it, it WILL tear a serious hole in you. That's what drilling this was like.

After six more bolts, I was fried and our batteries were dead. So we fixed, and Dylan descended into the dihedral to scrub, while I started removing munge from the Green Line. The procedure: you reach down to the bottom of the grass on the ledge lip, you peel up, and you throw the whole thing off. We got about 20 meters cleaned up enough to see that it will be easy (5.4) traversing. Likely it will take one more bolt around a small bulge, then we can walk on the much wider right side to the tree at the base of the diagonal corner.

Meanwhile, Dylan got all but ten feet of the dihedral scrubbed. We were feeling pretty good-- next day will see us to the diagonal, the Green line is mostly clean, the dihedral is done, and we left the gardening tools on the Green Line, so less hauling next time. We are hoping to get out on Wednesday.

Day 6-- the Green Line beckons.

The weekend appeared with the womenfolk working and Napoleon socialising. So Dylan and I did what Real Men do...we went gardening. Vertical gardening. Napoleon said he wanted to rap the entire route on Sudnay, but I told him that, since we had Dylan onboard for that day, we should all work the bottom of the route-- the first two pitches need cleaning and gardening. But Napoleon bailed.

On Saturday we took our newly charged new battery and way too much crap up the route. The 55m (likely) 5.11a pitch I think we will split into two. There is a stance about halfway up.

Drillin' Connelly set off up the dihedral while I did some more gardening on our 3rd and 4th pitches. This pitch has no crack to put gear in, so Dylan would drill a tiny bat-hook hole, put a hook in it, attach aiders, stand up, and then drill higher. He installed I believe 8 bolts on that pitch while I dug out a few more roots and some more dirt, and when that was doen I sat on the ledge while the Gri-gri belayed Dylan and I read my book, a history of international organised crime after the fall of Communism.

As we worked, well, as Dylan worked and I shouted up encouragement, we heard yelling coming from a route in our vicinity. "Heyyyy....get to wooooork....lazy fuuuuuckers" Yes folks, it was the elusive Napoleon shit-talking me from the nearest adjacent route. I didn't have a quick witty response, so I merely told him to tongue my balls and wondered why he would rather talk about the route than work on it.

At three the rains came to Whistler and the clouds started moving in. We got super excited: Dylan's highest bolt allowed him to finally SEE the Green Line Ledge. He yelled "it's a cave!" and then I lowered him. I went up to his high point on TR and tried the dihedral moves. I got a few of them. The last 2/3 will be 11+, the first 1/3 seems impossible right now. It will be a blend of full-on friction, stemming and weird body contortions. At the high point, I got a look, and yes, the Green Line is in fact a "recessed" ledge-- the granite above comes down, then there is an incut of about 3 feet into the rock and 3 feet deep, then the granite comes out. Kind of like a letter "C" or better yet a square racket like this: ].

The rains came, so we bailed and then headed off to our friends place. But first, hardware. We were out of bolts nuts washers and hangers. Since Valhalla didn't have any, we went to that other source of climbing gear-- Canadian Tire, where we loaded up on bolts and clippers.

We had been prepared to eat A&W for dinner and then sleep under a rock but instead we were fed a fine dinner at our pal Stovo's place and then after showers we crashed in luxury in actual beds. I dreamed of the Green Line.

Ready to roll...again

Well I must apologise for no news for 2 weeks now. First, the fun stuff, namely, shit-talking Napoleon, heh heh. No, just kidding, Napoleon has actually been doing real work instead of the usual (propping up Starbucks and chasing women). He and Ben Roy hiked 250m of static line to the top of the (potential) route yesterday. They rapped the v-slot, say it will go at 5.8 or 5.9. They would have actualy hung the 250m of static line on the route, but Napoleon heard that Starbucks was closing and so they haightailed it out of there ;-)

Dylan Connelly and I were set last Sat then of course it pissed on us so we abandoned, then of course itwas lovely that afternoon. This week we have acquired a new battery for the drill so hopefully we can get more than 2.5 holes out of the damn thing. Dilly and I are heading up Sat and Sun to work on it. Napoleon is allegedly coming out on Sunday. Hopefully he can finish what Tony McLane started-- our first 2 pitches need some logging, some crow-barring, and some gardening.

Day 5: Drillin' Connelly

Fresh from India and Nepal, and newly moved into the world of corporate finance, The Driller was rabid to get on our route today. I was pretty psyched...Dylan has done loads of aid climbing (loads more than me, anyway). Napoleon was nowhere to be seen but the immense lineup at Starbucks (which you can see from our route) suggested that he was probably there getting his 35th coffee of the morning.

Anyway, Driller and I were a bit late getting started due to nearly running out of gas but up we went. We made it to our high point after I stepped in some shit and we sweated through the oddly humid but thankfully not 32 degree weather.

Dylan jugged quickly, and when we got to the ledge at our high point, he launched into aid. Blicker called this one right-- the dihedral we are now climbing will be harder than I'd thought (11+?) likely with no gear. Here's Dylan on the dihedral pitch:



Drillin' Connelly bathooked and 1/8"'d his way up while I slid down the fixed line and did some serious gardening, which basically meant throwing rocks at the ground and ripping out handfuls of dirt. When the first battery died-- after a mere 2.5 holes-- I lowered the Driller to the belay, and when he started to change batteries, I think I gave him a moment of slack. In any case, the battery fell down, smacked my shoulder, and then fell 200m down the face of the cliff into the talus. FUCK! So with drilling activities over for the day, we turned our attention to P3 and the loose rock and dirt.

I managed to kill the huge pain-in-the-ass tree, while showering Driller (now Digger) with many cubic meters of dirt. The horrifying loose blocks that had scared Blicker were stller there, but no match for the Digger.


So we hacked and grunted and got rid of it. Only problem was, we now have off-width sections on our crack, ha. Oh well, we'll manage. At the end of the day, were pretty satisfied. Here's a pic of the crack, cleaned:





Here's a last photo of Dylan rapping at day's end.

At the base we found the dropped battery, plugged it in...and it worked! A bit more scrubbing, a few more bathook and copperhead moves, and we will have P3 and P4 ready to climb, and then we start either traversing the Green Line, or heading up the black & white flake.